The first time I met Gail Lemberger, we walked 26 miles together over 10 hours.

After dealing with exhaustion, joy, blisters, laughter, complaints and jubilation during the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer, I found Lemberger to be most fun and pleasant. I figured this new friend was a keeper.

We met in 2008, two years after Lemberger was diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer. She had a double mastectomy and clean bill of health but her cancer would return. Over the past eight years, she has endured chemotherapy treatments and lost her hair. The fight is a lifelong one but recently she’s had clean scans.

Lemberger, a Newbury Park resident, is a big sports fan, too. Sometimes I forget how big.

When we had lunch together last year, she spotted Clay Matthews at a nearby table in Agoura. I told her I couldn’t believe she noticed him first.

“He played high school football here!” Lemberger said emphatically.

We often talk sports over coffee, but most of the time I see Lemberger, it’s watching her do work. Volunteer work. The 55-year-old Lemberger helps raise funds for the Avon Walk and Run for Her and Revlon Run/Walk for Women. She co-hosts our annual charity poker event. She does what she’s asked and asks to do more.

Lemberger does so much volunteer work it’s like her job. She spends time, effort and energy to raise funds for cancer research.

Others have noticed, much to her dismay. And Friday, Lemberger will be honored with the Celebration of Life Award by the Cancer Support Community Valley/Ventura/Santa Barbara in a gala at the Four Seasons Hotel Westlake Village.

She is appreciative of the award, but she’d rather someone else be recognized, so much so she tried to convince the CSC to give it to someone else. When that didn’t happen, she figured another award winner should receive her award, too.

People like Lemberger should be allowed to step into the limelight for a while, even if begrudgingly.

Unfortunately, more people like maligned Clippers owner Donald Sterling receive awards because of money they give, not time.

Sterling, caught up in a scandal of racism and banned from the NBA for life, was supposed to be honored this month with another lifetime achievement award by the NAACP. The organization has stripped him of that award.

Lemberger gives her time to organizations — she’s at the CSC weekly — and doesn’t throw money at organizations. Still, she donates plenty.

When I auctioned off an NHL Stadium Series hat with all proceeds going to charity, she outbid everyone, then donated even more than the winning bid.

She wanted the hat for her son Matthew’s birthday. She was so excited she gave it to him before his birthday.

For Christmas, she gave him a ticket to the NHL Stadium Series game between the Ducks and Kings at Dodger Stadium. Pretty cool mom, too.

Sterling received a lifetime achievement award by the NAACP in 2009. He took out a newspaper ad to give himself a public pat on the back.

Lemberger doesn’t even know about this column. If I had asked for an interview, she would’ve convinced me to write about the Cancer Support Community locations, which do wonderful work. Patients and folks affected by cancer can benefit from services, all of which are free. She started there by receiving help. A year later, she was giving back. Still doing it, too.

Lemberger and her family are big Kings fans, and they’ve found ways to combine sports with charity. She and her husband, Steve, and son Matthew took in a Kings game last year through the Faceoff Against Cancer program.

She worried the Kings-Ducks Freeway Series might start Friday and that family and friends would rather go to the game than the gala. Game 1 is Saturday, and as we’ve learned from the Kings’ last series against San Jose, they don’t really get started until Game 4 anyway.

Last year, we had a fundraiser at the Jersey Mike’s in Granada Hills, which is owned by former Dodger Steve Yeager and his family. Lemberger and her husband had never met Yeager. Steve Lemberger just got in his truck to return to work and thought he missed Yeager.

When I told Gail that Yeager had arrived, she yelled to her husband “That’s hiiiiiiim!” even though Yeager was practically standing next to her.

And now, she knows Yeager as “That’s hiiiiiim!”

I’m sure he’s been called worse.

Lemberger is finally being recognized for her commitment to fighting cancer with this award.

Lemberger would rather do her work in anonymity.

It was time to honor someone who wanted nothing to do with publicity and everything to do with helping.

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